Thursday, November 4, 2010

Bill Brady waits for all votes to be counted in governor’s race

AP Posted Nov 04, 2010 @ 01:23 PM

CHICAGO — Illinois Republican Bill Brady’s campaign was looking to determine where votes still needed to be counted today as he trailed Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in the governor’s race, one of a handful of contests up in the air across the nation.

Brady has yet to concede in the race that has seen Quinn’s slim margin of votes grow since Tuesday’s election. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Quinn has a lead of more than 19,000 votes over Brady out of more than 3.6 million ballots were cast.

“We remain in an information-gathering phase to ensure we know how many ballots remain to be counted to ensure that no voter is left by the road,” Brady spokeswoman Patty Schuh said.

But Quinn is moving on. He was scheduled to visit a Chicago deli today to thank voters for casting a ballot on Election Day.

Brady has said he’s willing to wait as long as a month for official results to be certified by state election officials, which is scheduled to happen Dec. 3.

In one Illinois county that backed Brady over Quinn, there are less than 1,600 ballots that remain to be counted, including nearly 1,300 absentee ballots that haven’t been returned with no guarantee that they will be, according to the Kane County clerk’s office.

Waiting for final results won’t be easy for Brady because he will have to persuade supporters to stay optimistic. Quinn will have his own challenges if the race drags on. Story at link